G-8 summit to be held at Camp David, not Chicago

President Obama is moving one of two major world summits from Chicago to the presidential retreat near Washington, with an aide saying the president has decided he wants a more "intimate" setting than his hometown for the May gathering.

The Group of Eight meeting will be moved to Camp David, according to the White House, but the gathering of NATO allies and the International Security Assistance Force will go on in Chicago as planned in mid-May.

Camp David will more closely approximate the remote settings in which the G8 leaders prefer to gather. Summits in large cities typically see clamorous protests, while those in the countryside are calmer and more sedate.

"It's not about Chicago being able to handle logistics, as evidenced by the fact that the NATO and ISAF meetings will be held there, which are far larger than the G8 meeting," said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for Obama's National Security Council. "There are a lot of political, economic and security issues that come together at the G8."

"This was really about the president looking for a more informal setting with these close partners," she said.

For several months, the summits have been scheduled for Chicago during the same week in May.

But Obama wanted the more informal setting in which to have a "free-flowing discussion with his fellow leaders," a second official said. Obama consulted with Mayor Rahm Emanuel about the decision to move the summit, the official said. The G8 summit will take place on May 18 and 19, addressing a range of economic, political and security issues. The president will then host the NATO allies and partners on May 20 and 21 in Chicago, where they will discuss the war in Afghanistan and their planned withdrawal.

Emanuel had personally lobbied Obama, his old boss, to host both summits. It would have been the first time since 1977 in London that the two organizations held meetings in the same city at the same time.

Emanuel's office put out a statement this afternoon saying he wished "President Obama and the other leaders well at the G8 meeting at Camp David and look forward to hosting the NATO Summit in Chicago.

"Hosting the NATO Summit is a tremendous opportunity to showcase Chicago to the world and the world to Chicago and we are proud to host the 50 heads of state, foreign and defense ministers from the NATO and ISAF countries in our great city May 19-21."

When the news broke Monday, the host committee first put out a statement mentioning only that Chicago was still looking forward to hosting the NATO meetings. But host committee executive director Lori Healey later addressed the loss of G-8.

“I’m sure it was a decision that was not made lightly,” she said. When asked if she had knowledge of the cancellation prior to Monday, she said she did not.

“Obviously, the White House doesn’t consult with the host committee,” she said. “I understand the reasons. There are critical issues that the White House wants to discuss in a more intimate setting. That’s the situation.”

Healey stressed the positive notes of NATO still being scheduled for Chicago, saying the host committee’s “program” for the weekend would remain unchanged, except the need to change the nature of a social event planned for Saturday night.

“It will ultimately have minimal impact,” Healey said. NATO, which has a larger membership and includes six of the eight G-8 countries, will draw larger numbers of visitors to the city, creating “our ability to show Chicago off to the countries of the world.”

Host committee officials were already reacting to the changes, she said.

“It’s not our first time at the rodeo. We have some pretty experienced people over here and we’re already making some adjustments,” said Healey, who also ran former Mayor Richard Daley’s failed bid to win the 2016 Olympics.

Chicago police estimated that 2,000 to 10,000 demonstrators were expected to show up for the overlapping G-8 and NATO summits. At least two major demonstrations were already planned for downtown during the summit, and organizers said they wanted to send crowds of marchers down Michigan Avenue in the middle of the day.

Police sources said the department has already sent about 8,400 of its roughly 12,000 sworn officers through some form of crowd-control training.

To date, about 2,400 officers drawn mostly from tactical and gang units have completed the training designed to prepare them for the front lines of crowd control. Those officers were expected to be outfitted in the black body armor that police call "turtle suits."

An additional 6,000 officers have taken a less intensive program of up to two days to make them ready to be responders working downtown during the summits, dressed in more traditional uniforms, sources said.

The mayor had also sought tough changes in ordinances governing public demonstrations. But in the face of criticism from aldermen and civil rights groups, he was forced to scale them back.

Emanuel wanted to increase the current minimum fine of $50 for violating the parade ordinance to $1,000. He dialed back the proposed minimum penalty to $200.

The mayor also proposed shortening demonstrations by 15 minutes, to two hours total, but later dropped that request. And the city eliminated a requirement that demonstrators supply a parade marshal for every 100 participants.

Emanuel kept intact the fine for resisting or obstructing a police officer at a range of $25 to $500 after aldermen said hiking the fine could have a chilling effect on First Amendment rights.

The head of a Chicago anti-war organization says the decision by the White House to move the G-8 summit is a major victory for protesters.

Joe Iosbaker is with the United National Antiwar Committee in Chicago and was helping to coordinate dozens of groups that planned to protest the twin NATO and G-8 summits in May. He said the G-8 summit was moved because it had become a major source of controversy.

Iosbaker said the protests will go on during the NATO summit “because the agendas are the same: war and poverty.”

Andy Thayer, a spokesman for the Coalition Against NATO-G-8, also said the protests will go on in Chicago, despite the change.

“The main thing is, the protests will go forward,” said Andy Thayer. “We believe that NATO is, frankly, the de facto military arm of G-8 and anybody who’s upset with G-8 should be upset with NATO.”

Some people involved in the planning of the summits in Chicago were stunned by the news and said they had no advanced warning of the change in plans.

Rick Jasculca, whose public relations firm has been advising World Business Chicago, the group Emanuel selected to lead the summit effort, said he learned of the change from breaking news announcements.

And an agent at the Chicago office of the U.S. Secret Service was caught off guard by questions about the cancellation, saying he had meetings scheduled this week regarding G-8 planning.

Ald. Michele Smith, 43rd, expressed surprise at the announcement, as did many of her colleagues at City Hall.

“What’s that all about?” Smith asked. “That’s a drag for the mayor, after all that aggravation.”

“Really, after all that drama?” Ald. Joe Moore, 49th, said.

Harvey Grossman, director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said he imagines there will less interest from protesters now that G-8 has been removed from the weekend of summits.

“Some of the primary concerns people have have been taken off the plate,” Grossman said. “People wanted to reach out to that audience. They wanted to show their level of dissent to the economic policies. It’s a disappointment in terms of the ability to engage.”

Meetings of leaders of international economic organizations like the G-8 have drawn violent large-scale protests for more than a decade.

Perhaps the most infamous U.S. incident occurred in Seattle in 1999, when a protest against a World Trade Organization meeting devolved into widespread rioting. About 35,000 protesters descended on the city, and police used tear gas and rubber bullets against crowds downtown in what became known as “The Battle of Seattle.”

A 2001 riot at the G-8 meeting in Genoa, Italy, left one person dead and hundreds injured. Before aG-20 economic summit in Pittsburgh in 2009, police fired pepper spray at marchers who threw rocks and rolled garbage bins.

Organizers of protests slated for the week the G8 industrialized nations' leaders had been scheduled to come to Chicago in May declared victory today when it was announced President Obama will instead host the leaders at Camp David.

After the initial surprise over word from the White House today that the May G-8 summit has been moved to Camp David, Chicago officials and protest organizers quickly turned to speculation of how that would affect the NATO meeting that is still planned for that weekend in the city.